Inside The New York Botanical Garden
Posted in Photography on May 18 2012, by Ann Rafalko
You know you’ve got a hit on your hands when the horticulture staff can’t stop taking pictures of their handiwork! Monet’s Garden opens tomorrow!
Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen
Posted in Photography on May 17 2012, by Ann Rafalko
It’s not just inside the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory where the preparations for Monet’s Garden are taking place. Behind the landmark building, in the Courtyard Pools, the Garden’s horticulture staff are preparing the stars of the show; water lilies, including some varieties that Monet grew at Giverny.
Posted in Photography on May 16 2012, by Ann Rafalko
Two different shrubs, two different gardens, two very similar photos; like color negatives of each other.
Photos by Ivo M. Vermeulen
Posted in Photography on May 15 2012, by Ann Rafalko
The fruit of the Japanese maple, Acer palmatum, usually has two wings. What to make of this tri-winged one then?
Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen
Posted in Photography on May 14 2012, by Ann Rafalko
You didn’t think we would forget Monet’s famous bridge, did you? Come see it in person when Monet’s Garden opens to the public on May 19!
Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen
Posted in Photography on May 13 2012, by Ann Rafalko
How does that adage go? Would you rather be a big duck in a little pond, or a little duck in a big pond? Clearly, this lady mallard–who looks right at home in the Home Gardening Center‘s rather small pond–has made up her mind.
Big Duck, Small Pond (photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen)
Posted in Photography on May 12 2012, by Ann Rafalko
With apologies to T.S. Eliot:
The naming of plants is a curious matter;
It isn’t just one of those science-y things.
You may find me as mad as a rosy pink madder
When I tell you a plant must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First is the name of the plant’s closest family
Such as Viburnum or Lilium, Paeonia or Oxalis–
All of them sensible, Latinate names.
There are names that are fancier, if you think they sound geekier,
Some are for flowers, others for trees:
Such as or Eschscholzia or Hesperantha, Metasequoia or Crassulaceae–
But all of them sensible, Latinate names.
But I tell you a plant needs a name that’s unique,
A name that’s precise, and more descriptive,
Else how can a scientist keep her croci in a row,
Or catalog her samples, or publish her findings?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a few
Such as odoratum, elegans, or subedentata,
Such as lactiflora, stellata, or else cotyledon–
Names that along with the first never belong to more than one plant.
But above and beyond there’s still one name to go,
And that is a name that you may know best;
It is a name that only a human can bestow–
The reason behind it ONLY THE HUMAN CAN KNOW, and will never confess.
When you notice a plant in profound meditation,
The reason I tell you is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought of why did this human give me this
Ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.
Posted in Photography on May 11 2012, by Ann Rafalko
The concept of a rock garden sounds amazingly dull, like it would be a garden full of well … rocks. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Plants are imminently adaptable, and those that adapt to the arid, hardscrabble life of grappling for nutrients in a barren biome tend to be, well, really cool. Need proof? Just check out the fractal fabulousness of these Hens and Chicks in the Garden’s WPA-era Rock Garden.
Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen
Posted in Around the Garden, Photography on May 10 2012, by Matt Newman
Euphorbia characias ssp. wulfenii ‘Shorty’ — Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen
Posted in Around the Garden, Photography on May 9 2012, by Matt Newman
Remnants of last week’s constant, soaking downpour. It’s so seldom we appreciate the sculpting of a tree trunk under the marquee of leaves and flowers.
Carpinus betulus ‘Fastigiata’ — Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen